After some pressure on the manager in recent weeks, the screw looked to be turning for Mark Warburton at QPR, yet a 5-3 loss has lumped it back on him.
For neutrals, there won’t be many better games to watch than this one over the weekend. On the contrary, Rangers fans will not be in a rush to catch the highlights for this match.
After two back-to-back wins with a pair of clean sheets, all was set up for Warburton to continue his terrific form with a win against bottom of the league Barnsley. Instead, they got battered 5-3 thanks to a Conor Chaplin hat-trick, and fans on Twitter aren’t particularly happy with their manager.
Was that our worst performance of the season?
Yes
There's been worse
Ben Amos was able to grab a brace at Oakwell, while Ilias Chair managed to add a late consolation goal. Cauley Woodrow and Bambo Diaby got the other goals for the Tykes.
Many were perplexed as to why, after two great performances and a week off to come, he decided to switch up the team.
Here are some of the replies below…
https://twitter.com/bplatt23/status/1205912403495534592?s=20
Broken record, tactical failure, we looked like a Sunday league team at the back today, feel for them as they had built some confidence with the clean sheets then Warburton changes it?
— Jason Pearce (@jasonpearce96) December 14, 2019
Perhaps he’ll play 6 at the back against Charlton! #QPR
— malcolm jacobus (@maljacqpr) December 14, 2019
@MarkWarburton9 why did you feel the need to change a winning team ?
— Edwin mills (@Edwin_aj_mills) December 14, 2019
Story of the season, Mark. Always soft
— CrazyDanizzle (@SlideAwayDreams) December 14, 2019
‘Soft goal…switched off…soft goal…blah, blah, blah…switched off…soft goal…’
Hope he’s better analysis on the training ground.
— David Williams (@DavidWQPR) December 14, 2019
It’s not a loss which they will want going into a busy spate of Christmas fixtures, however, it is important not to get carried away as they are still just four points off the play-off zones.
The last two performances before this showed huge improvements so Warburton will be wanting to make sure that this result doesn’t wipe out all of the progress made from the previous week.